Recent issues to my car have caused me to rummage through my glove box (who puts gloves there anyway?) and pull out all the repair work orders and invoices to see what has been done to the car. Struck with a strong sense of deja vu, I realized that every time I have issues with my car, I pull out the stash of mismatched papers to see when the last time xxx was tinkered with. At that point, I decided to make an excel sheet of all the repair and maintenance record I had on hand, so that in one clear location, I can witness what has been done to my car.

While I don’t intend to sell my car any time soon, an itemized list of all the repairs done on the car should scream responsible owner. This is a good way of distinguishing yourself from the thousands of craigslist posters who declare themselves to be responsible owners and their cars to be in perfect condition (which I would never declare about my car). Of course do keep your original record for proof.

Interesting things I noticed from my data aggregation:

• Contrary to my belief that my car is a lemon, I didn’t have any problems in 2006. While that counteracts the disastrous 2005, it makes me feel somewhat OKer about my current troubles.


• The previous owner (my good friend from college) had serious problems during the three months before he sold me the car. No wonder he seemed so glad.


• There are myriads of things that hasn’t been changed in a while that I should look into.

Labels: car